Nobel Peace Laureates to convene this month in Chicago
IPPNW will join more than 20 other Nobel Peace Prize recipients in Chicago on April 23 for this year’s World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. This will be the largest gathering of Peace Laureates in the history of these summits, which have taken place annually since 1999 under the auspices of the Gorbachev Foundation and the City of Rome to promote peace and global security.
Former US President Bill Clinton will deliver keynote remarks at the Chicago Summit, and will be joined on the program by former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, former US President Jimmy Carter, and Peace Laureates including Oscar Arias, Lech Walesa, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Jody Williams, and Muhammad Yunus.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese human rights activist and Peace Laureate who has recently won election to Burma’s parliament, will present video remarks during the Summit. Kerry Kennedy, President of the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, will speak during an opening ceremony entitled “Speak Up, Speak Out for Freedom and Rights.”
IPPNW will participate in a panel to explore practical paths to a world without nuclear weapons on the final day of the three-day Summit. Ira Helfand will discuss the latest research on the climate effects of nuclear war; the impact on global agricultural production, food availability, and nutrition; and the urgency of working for a nuclear weapons convention. Co-president Vappu Taipale will also represent the federation in Chicago.
This year’s Nobel Laureates Summit is being organized by the Chicago Community Trust, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s Office of Protocol and International Relations, and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. World-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz will be at the Summit on assignment from Vanity Fair magazine. Michaela Mycroft, the winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011, will be awarded the Medal for Activism. Actor, film director, and activist Sean Penn will receive this year’s Peace Summit Award from President Gorbachev and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.
Public health approaches to the UNPoA
Maria Valenti and Cathey Falvo
IPPNW and the IANSA Public Health Network
In 1981, the World Health Assembly adopted resolution 34.38 that stated, “The role of physicians and other health workers in the preservation and promotion of peace is the most significant factor for attainment of health for all.” Fifteen years later, the 49th World Health Assembly (The World Health Organization’s [WHO] governing body) declared violence as a leading worldwide public health problem. Subsequently, the WHO developed the landmark document Small Arms and Global Health prepared for the first UN Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) in 2001. The WHO states that “Violence is an important health problem – and one that is largely preventable. Public health approaches have much to contribute to solving it.”
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) responded to the call for health professionals to address violence by convening the major conference “Aiming for Prevention: International Medical Conference on Small Arms, Gun Violence, and Injury” in Helsinki, Finland 28-30 September 2001. This meeting was held shortly after the initial PoA meeting in New York and brought together for the first time hundreds of medical professionals, scientists, and public health experts to address the humanitarian dimensions of small arms violence. Read more…
Later this year, the countries of the world will convene at the United Nations in New York City to assess what progress has been made since 2001 when the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UN PoA) took effect. They will also be discussing the next ten years, and opportunities for advancing our global common cause – to prevent needless injuries and deaths from firearm violence, which still injures hundreds of thousands each year, and maims and traumatizes millions more.
Hakeem Ayinde, Cathey Falvo, and Emeka Okolo (left to right) confer during the UNPOA PrepCom in New York.
Today in New York, myself and doctors Cathey Falvo from the US, and Dr. Hakeem Ayinde from Nigeria, joined NGOs from around the world to participate in the first day of the PrepCom which will set the stage for the Review Conference in August. We have been afforded an interesting perspective on the proceedings as another IPPNW-Nigeria colleague, Dr. Emeka Okolo, is serving on the Nigerian delegation – and the Chair of the conference is Ambassador U. Joy Ogwu from Nigeria. Read more…
Try a little nuclear sanity
On February 8, 2012, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act (H.R. 3974). This SANE Act would cut $100 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next ten years by reducing the current fleet of U.S. nuclear submarines, delaying the purchase of new nuclear submarines, reducing the number of ICBMs, delaying a new bomber program, and ending the nuclear mission of air bombers.
“America’s nuclear weapons budget is locked in a Cold War time machine,” noted Markey, the senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “It doesn’t reflect our twenty-first-century security needs. It makes no sense. It’s insane.” He went on to explain: “It’s insane to spend $10 billion building new plants to make uranium and plutonium for new nuclear bombs when we’re cutting our nuclear arsenal and the plants we have now work just fine.” Furthermore: “It’s insane that we’re going to spend $84 billion for up to fourteen new nuclear submarines when just one sub, with 96 nuclear bombs on board, can blow up every major city in Iran, China and North Korea.” Finally, “it is insane to spend hundreds of billions on new nuclear bombs and delivery systems . . . while . . . seeking to cut Medicare, Medicaid and social programs that millions of Americans depend on.”
Since its introduction, the SANE Act has picked up significant support. Read more…
A new divestment campaign with old roots
“Don’t Bank on the Bomb,” the new report released this week by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), exposes the complex web of relationships among banks, investment funds, other private financial institutions, and the corporations that manufacture and maintain a large share of the world’s nuclear weapons. The report is a remarkable piece of research on its own terms, but its real value lies in the foundation it provides for local and national divestment campaigns in some 30 countries.
Tim Wright, the director of ICAN-Australia and the lead author of the report, said on this blog today, “Any person with a bank account or pension fund has the power to choose not to invest in nuclear arms makers.” Read more…
Nuclear divestment: the medical case
This week the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons launched a major study on the global financing of nuclear weapons producers. The 180-page report argues that banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers should divest from companies involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of nuclear forces. By investing in these companies, financial institution are in effect facilitating the build-up of nuclear arsenals and heightening the risk that these ultimate weapons of mass destruction will be used again.
The report provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies that are heavily involved in the US, British, French and Indian nuclear programs. They include BAE Systems and Babcock International in the United Kingdom, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in the United States, Thales and Safran in France, and Larsen & Toubro in India. Financial institutions invest in these companies by providing loans and purchasing shares and bonds. The report found that more than 300 financial institutions in 30 countries have substantial investments in nuclear weapons companies. Read more…
700 prominent Australians call for nuclear abolition
From the February 16, 2012 edition of the National Catholic Reporter:
More than 700 prominent Australians — including former prime ministers, defense ministers, and Catholic bishops and priests — have signed onto a statement calling on their country’s government to adopt a “nuclear-weapons-free” defense posture and to take steps to initiate a global treaty to abolish nuclear arsenals.
The statement, which was put together by Australians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention and announced Jan. 25, includes signatures from 713 Australians who have received the Order of Australia, an honor granted by Queen Elizabeth II to note achievement or “meritorious service” and similar to a knighthood in the United Kingdom. Read more…
IPPNW promotes role of public health and civil society in monitoring ATT
By Hakeem Ayinde, MD
Wednesday, the 15th of February was definitely the biggest day for IPPNW at the ongoing 4th Arms Trade Treaty PrepCom. We had a double header of hosting a side event and addressing the states delegates during the NGO presentations right after that.
The side event focused on the role of public health and civil society in monitoring the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This topic was especially pertinent, as some states have sought to limit the participation of NGOs in the negotiations for a robust Arms treaty. Read more…
From time to time on this blog, I’ve stated that substantial cuts in the US and Russian nuclear arsenals—to levels of 500 each or fewer—would not only represent a serious “down payment” on a world without nuclear weapons, but would also take away the last remaining excuse for the other nuclear-weapon states to come to the table and commence negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention. Two years ago, I pointed to an even more dramatic proposal, made by US Air Force strategists no less, for cuts to a little more than 300 weapons, which they said the US could safely do regardless of whether Russia and the other nuclear-weapons states followed suit.
I’ve also expressed disappointment that the New START agreement between the US and Russia did little more than codify the Bush-Putin era cuts in a real treaty, rather than the overly casual SORT. (I called the latter “deeply flawed,” instead of “phony,” in a rare moment of self-restraint.) The Obama administration’s subsequent commitment to a hyper-inflated program to rebuild the US nuclear weapons infrastructure in order to modernize and refocus a smaller, but apparently permanent, START-level arsenal, left most of us wondering what was left of the bold vision of a world without nuclear weapons President Obama embraced in Prague in 2009.
Over the last couple of weeks, however, two things have happened that suggest the Prague vision—or at least some slightly more ambitious version of it than we’ve seen in the past three years—may be guiding the administration’s actions after all. Read more…
IPPNW Joins Nobel Laureates Panel at United Nations ATT Meeting
Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez, former president of Costa Rica with IPPNW's co-president, Dr. Robert Mtonga.
“Listen to your doctor – we can achieve a strong and humanitarian-based ATT,” were Dr. Bob Mtonga’s closing words as he joined Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez and others on a Nobel Laureates side panel today at the ATT talks.
In 1997 Dr. Arias, former president of Costa Rica, convened in New York a group of Nobel Peace prize winners, including IPPNW, to call for an International Code of Conduct on arms trade to stem the tide of injuries and death from unregulated arms flow. Another speaker today who also attended that same meeting was Susan Waltz, Amnesty International US board member. The Albert Schweitzer Institute was also at the meeting nearly 15 years ago, and was represented today by David Ives, the current Executive Director. Read more…
Bimal Khadka
Bjorn Hilt
Charles K. Johnson
Gunnar Westberg
IPPNW
John Loretz
Lawrence Wittner
Maria Valenti
mollymcgint
Sue Wareham
Tilman Ruff
Tim Wright
Xanthe Hall
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